Justin Timberlake

Tabloids, DJs, or message boards-- everyone seems to be consumed with Justin Timberlake: Hollywood starlets catfight over him at awards ceremonies. Soundsystems in hip-hop nations and gay clubs blast him at peak hours. Global scenes adopt his music. And critics marvel at a former boy-band singer crossing artistic barriers and use him as a springboard to discuss the "real" and the "fake."

For those with experienced with Great Pop Moments-- such as the Prince/Madonna/Michael Jacskon flood of the 1980s-- those debates are all too familiar. And the main notion worth taking away from Justin's FutureSex/LoveShow set at Madison Square Garden earlier this month-- one of the first shows on a months-long world tour-- was that people incapable of owning up to the kid's supernova, demeaning it with perfunctory pop lip service or dismissing it outright, are depriving no one but themselves. Hasn't history repeatedly proven the error of trying to deflagrate pop moments at their inception?

It should just be easy enough to say "fuck 'em" and move on. But it underscores the point that maybe the ironists and heart-wrung haters should pay closer attention-- and not just to the fact that the lights go down to "House of Jealous Lovers". Justin's LoveShow, with key guest-star Timbaland, includes moments of traditional songcraft and embraces modern mores that could seem illogical in such a context. After all, if you're gonna be a cynical marketeer, why bother trying to feed kids actual content, when you can just entertain 'em with bells and whistles?

Of which, the $100-ticket guaranteed there would be plenty: The in-the-round staging was custom-fit for both intimate band plays and big-show numbers. The non-stop video barrage and the movable curtains served, by turn, as screens and see-through walls. The choreography and costumes of the nine (!) dancers were perfectly risqué for songs meant to project Justin's artistic and hormonal growth, but sporty and Gap Kids enough for numbers when clean-cut Justin was being spot lit. The seven-piece metallic funk-soul group and a quartet of back-up singers were all pros to a fault-- no individualism necessary, but hard work over the 140-minute long show a must.

Justin's full-time pop-star embodiment was also expected. But it wasn't just about dancing with keytars, beatbox asides, and sculpted camaraderie (including, early in the show, shots of booze with the band to celebrate his return to the Garden). More impressive was the graceful charisma: Not much chatter, no hair out of place, no stride unpunctuated by a drag of the foot, a toe-tap or a spin, depending on what the music called for; and a first hour of pacing to kill (among others, "Like I Love You", "Señorita," "Sexy Ladies", and "My Love", wherein a squealing guitar solo tried to make up for T.I.'s absence).

At the halfway point, Justin sat down at the piano to lead the band through "What Goes Around...", first hinting at less perfunctory pop idolatry. Already a seven-minute centerpiece on record, the nearly 10-minute live take (halved at the Grammys) was relaxed in its build, a soul-pop epic with its singer steering his group through two separate crescendos. (Though, the second came on the heels of a voyeuristic handheld camera bit that slightly cheapened the performance.) Two more grand instances of "real" musicality followed later: "Cry Me a River" is rigged for such occasions and has the chart-placement to prove it. But "LoveStoned", which begins as a dance track and mutates into the downbeat "I Think That She Knows" outro, is another beast entirely, strangely embodying the highs and lows of one-night-stands, going from fuck-me dynamics to the pop-ambient shadows. The last bit found Justin at the Korg, filling the arena with U2/Eno chords and emo evocations.

Soon after "What Goes Around..." came Timbaland's turn-- and 20+ of the most unique musical minutes I've spent in a dark, loud sports arena. With Tim behind a curtain manning a stack of keyboards and an MPC, a DJ at one stage lip, and a video-projection chopping up a frenzied montage, the sold-out pop concert revealed its bass-heavy, hip-hop-techno heart. Grist for the mega-mash mill (no order): symphonic gangsta-bounce, Tim's greatest beats (Jay, Missy, Nelly Furtado), far-flung classics (MJ remixed, Kraftwerk, a beat-box version of "Since U Been Gone"), the inevitable Aaliyah tribute...all dropping into a full play of "Give It to Me" [ft. Nelly and Justin], the first single from Tim's upcoming solo album, an ad for which was the last image on the screen. Yes, the mini-set was a promotion (what did you think live shows are about?), and as such spoke volumes of the critical understanding of artistic motivation. (Hint: none.)

The juxtaposition of Tim's multimedia mindfuck with Justin's return-- immediately bringing the show back to the traditionalists ("Rock Yr Body"), the old N'Sync fans (an acoustic "Gone"), and even the chaperones (a verse of the Commodores' "Easy")-- could not have been clearer. Pandering? Sure. But the fact that Justin's LoveShow could comfortably contain both, among other multitudes (the novelty one-night-only encore of "Dick in a Box" with "Saturday Night Live"'s Andy Stamberg, for one), was among its massive achievements.

In that light, it'd be bogus not to think of another somewhat-respected and somewhat-damned white-boy from Memphis whose name was on everyone's lips, who played with a variety of cards and got damn good at many of them. And, no, that's not a comparison-- just pointing out that those who can't conceive it ever happening again, will miss it when it does.